If this is where rugby is going, it could be a journey without me.
For me, rugby is the ultimate team game. Tall or short, big or small, there was always a place for you.
It is not about individuals, but about the collective. If you are humble, hardworking and brave, you will earn everyone’s respect.
No one is bigger than the team, no one says or does stupid things that put a target on people’s heads. You talk a small game, but you play a big one.
Normally I wouldn’t stoop to writing about Henry Pollock. The Northampton flanker is not worth my time or anyone else’s.
He is a useful player, who is now being kicked by the boxing promoter.
Pollock is not fit to lace up the boots of Richie McCaw, who epitomizes everything we once wanted and valued in a rugby player.
But frankly, I was stunned to see Pollock described this week as “the new Taylor Swift of his generation.”
I don’t want to shock anyone, but aside from hearing the name and probably being able to identify Swift in the police department, I don’t know or care about her. If she has an audience, I’m not part of it.
New Zealand The rugby players occasionally stick their heads above the parapet and, when they do, I get goosebumps. TJ Perenara, Rieko Ioane and Ardie Savea would be the three that immediately come to mind.
Just play, champion, and don’t make a spectacle of yourself.
But that’s not where we’re going here. No, despite the lack of substance, we will attempt to style Pollock into a rugby icon.
Jonah Lomu was pretty big in my day. Jonny Wilkinson too, especially in England. I doubt too many Kiwi kids had his posters on their wall.
The thing is, these men have garnered attention and adulation outside of their teams because of the volume of their performances. They were match winners who became marketable based on their deeds.
If this fuss over Pollock is anything to go by, we now want to promote people to relevance regardless of whether they’ve ever done anything.
I accept that rugby has challenges. No, that’s not quite right. Rugby has one challenge: it overpays players and is therefore in a perpetual search for more eyeballs and more money in an attempt to break even.
Not to make money. Just so it doesn’t fail.
The Lomu thing was a bit of a puzzle for New Zealand 30 years ago. Generations of All Black fans grew up on men like Colin Meads, Don Clarke and Sean Fitzpatrick and, while they were universally admired and respected, you wouldn’t call them celebrities.
Lomu was different. His talent and impact on matches was so great that he was recognized in the team environment and the public just couldn’t get enough of him.
He transcended the collective in the way that multitudes of truly great ones do All black people it is neither before nor after.
Daniel Carter tried to make himself a public figure in retirement, but he was always one of the boys in his playing days.
The fabric of rugby is important to me. I shake my head when they tell me that we’re in entertainment now and we need to connect with younger people through social media, not paddock performances.
I also resented the idea that the All Blacks were a brand rather than a team.
But regardless of all the mistakes in that thinking and the fact that it puts the cart before the horse, it is still a collective.
This Pollock stuff is about Pollock. It’s not about Northampton or England. It’s not even about rugby.
It’s about a promoter who decides, seemingly on a whim, that this is a person of essential importance who we’ll be told is transformative so many times that we end up believing it.
Hell, I’m disappointed in myself for giving oxygen to the whole charade. But I do it because it has to be said that this is not what rugby has ever been or should be.
Teams and players have always been valued for their performances, not their hairstyles. Yes, the game must try to pay for itself, but not by cheating the public.
For every passing fan you attract for five minutes, just as many of your traditional audience turn away in disgust.
Players have come and gone throughout my life, but my love for the game never has. That’s in large part because no one is ever bigger than him.
